Originally posted to NovaEarth.Invisionzone.com (https://novaearth.invisionzone.com/topic/7-what-is-a-global-conversation-and-why-does-it-matter/).
I took what Linda wrote about the four forms of intergalactic communication (1) and mapped them to my own speaking and listening patterns.
Keeping in mind that we all probably have cellular memories of intergalactic communication, even if we don’t remember them consciously, I saw that I may have been influenced at a deep subconscious level by these forms in the therapeutic listening I used to do some years ago.
As a Sociology graduate student in the Eighties, I specialized in therapeutic listening, having seen that problem-solving therapy was not what my volunteer clients wanted or needed.
They would tell me their “problems.” I would offer my “solutions.” They would ignore them and continue speaking. Oh. Solutions were not what they were after. They wanted to be heard.
I’d take three passes at listening. The first pass could be considered to be, using Linda’s categories, Perro. Just the facts, ma’am.
We’d establish what actually happened, of course keeping in mind that many of us turn what happened into a self-serving story, muting or overlooking our own excesses and playing up the other’s gaffes, injustices, slights, etc. (myself included).
Nonetheless the first cut is what the speaker considers to be the facts of the matter.
The second pass is the emotional truth, how the person feels about what happened. That may correspond to what Linda calls Paca. Without knowing how the speaker feels about the “facts” of the situation, the listening as a therapeutic session is incomplete. Often knowing the emotional response to the “facts” causes light bulbs to go on for the speaker.
The third pass is similar to Saedor, in the sense that the speaker now has both the facts on the table and his or her emotional response to them. This is now the stage at which heartfelt introspection happens. I usually characterize this as looking at events to see if anything has been left out. I may ask the speaker to say how they feel about what they’ve seen (in essence, how they feel about how they feel).
This is the stage at which compassion may arise. They may see the things the other party was handling. Or they may see the vasana that’s driving themselves or the other party. Insight more often occurs here than at other stages.
The heart usually chimes in at this point. They may feel love or remorse for one they considered, up to this stage, to be a perpetrator.
I don’t really mean this to be a discussion of listening theory. If I did, I’d say that the moment insight occurs, I end the session. Usually all the speaker wants to do is to get up then and rush home to tell their spouse or partner what they’ve just seen. It’s my job at that moment to let them go without long goodbyes or detaining them further.
There certainly could be a role for Badu, a conversation for committed action, but that would be, I think, among social, economic or political leaders, rather than among the man or woman on the street, so to speak. I’ve said earlier that the form of Badu that I’m used to seeing consists of taking stands, making promises, declaring, asserting, etc. These types of communication inspire action. They’re often used by orators.
A conversation for committed action came up only on very rare occasions in my listening sessions. If this weren’t therapeutic listening, but a human-growth workshop, the situation might be different.
So I can see the possibility that an echo of the four forms of communication that Linda listed may arise in our listening as well as our speaking.
Footnotes
(1) Linda Dillon, “The Forms of Intergalactic Language,” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/?p=262981.